Swiss International Air Lines has named Lufthansa Group manager Jens Fehlinger as its new chief executive beginning on 1 October.
Fehlinger succeeds Dieter Vranckx, who will leave the Zurich-based carrier at the beginning of July. Earlier this year, Vranckx was appointed to the Lufthansa Group Executive Board. In the interim, chief commercial officer Heike Birlenbach will fill the airline’s top role, the company said on 28 June.
“In Jens Fehlinger we have secured the services for our company of a genuine connoisseur of the air transport sector,” Swiss’ board chairman Reto Francioni says. “He has accumulated extensive experience in various areas within the Lufthansa Group and he has proven well able to deliver innovations in our industry.”
“He has shown vision, strategic flair and operational expertise, along with an ability to work closely with his teams, to establish a new airline and, in doing so, he has confirmed his capacity to guide a company to success,” Francioni adds.
Fehlinger began his professional career at Lufthansa Group in 2006, where he held management positions that included head of corporate airline strategy and business development for Lufthansa Airlines and head of operations performance management and analytics for the Lufthansa Group. He also led the group’s crisis management office during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as its subsequent ReNew restructuring programme.
Most recently he served as co-managing director of Lufthansa CityLine, while simultaneously establishing and developing the new Lufthansa City Airlines company as managing director.
“[Swiss is] a great company that has performed outstandingly well, especially in the last few years, and that has emerged from the recent crisis as a sound and growing concern,” Fehlinger says. “It has achieved this above all through its dedicated, open and innovative team – a team that celebrates its Swissness with pride.
“I see it as my new duty to ensure that we continue to cultivate this invaluable company asset,” he adds.
Fehlinger, a German national who studied aviation engineering and management in Bremen and traffic and transport in Darmstadt, is also a licensed pilot, and is type-rated on the Lufthansa CityLine Airbus A320-family fleet.
